Editing Oscar II (section)

===Foreign and domestic statecraft===
[[File:Portrett av Kong Oscar II (6961203441).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Photograph of Oscar II, {{circa|1870s}}]]
His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns (both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were French military commanders who served under [[Napoleon I]]) gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. At the request of the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States in 1889, he appointed the [[Chief Justice of Samoa]] under the [[Treaty of Berlin (1889)|Treaty of Berlin]], and he was again called on to arbitrate in [[Samoa]]n affairs in 1899.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

[[File:Oscar II av Sverige by Gosta Florman, 1891.jpg|thumb|right|Photograph of Oscar II by Gösta Florman, {{circa|1891}}]]
In 1897, he was empowered to appoint a fifth arbitrator if necessary in the Venezuelan dispute, and he was called on to act as umpire in the Anglo-American arbitration treaty that was quashed by the [[United States Senate]]. He won many friends in the United Kingdom by his outspoken and generous support of Britain at the time of the [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902), expressed in a declaration printed in ''[[The Times]]'' of 2 May 1900, when continental opinion was almost universally hostile.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

He remained a strong supporter of the Navy throughout his life, and frequently visited ships of the fleet. When the [[coastal defence ship]] {{ship|HSwMS|Oscar II||2}} was launched, he even signed his name on the vessel's aft main gun tower.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Borgenstam|first=Curt|title=Swedish Coastal Defence Ship Oscar II|journal=International Navy Journal|volume=5|number=1|year=2017|issn=2411-3204|page=65|url=http://ejournal37.com/journals_n/1508159082.pdf|access-date=18 September 2018|archive-date=11 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211221041/http://ejournal37.com/journals_n/1508159082.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The office of [[Prime Minister of Sweden]] was instituted in 1876. [[Louis Gerhard De Geer|Louis De Geer]] became the first head of government in Sweden to use this title. The most known and powerful first minister of the Crown during the reign of Oscar was the conservative estate owner [[Erik Gustaf Boström]]. Boström served as Prime Minister in 1891–1900 and 1902–1905. He was trusted and respected by Oscar II, who had much difficulty approving someone else as prime minister. Over a period of time, the King gave Boström a free hand to select his own ministers without much royal involvement. It was an arrangement (unintentional by both the King and Boström) that furthered the road to parliamentarism.